Albania

1965-03-11

Tirana, Albania

Ylli Ndroqi (Ndroqi) is a media owner whose assets were seized by the Albanian government in 2020 and 2021 for previous criminal activity. Ndroqi has utilized media outlets formerly under his control to extort and blackmail Albanian citizens through demands for money and advertising purchases in exchange for withholding publication of negative media stories. Additionally, Ndroqi has facilitated bribes on behalf of an entity seeking to do business in Albania. Ndroqi is being designated pursuant to E.O. 14033 for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption related to the Western Balkans, including corruption by, on behalf of, or otherwise related to a government in the Western Balkans, or a current or former government official at any level of government in the Western Balkans, such as the misappropriation of public assets, expropriation of private assets for personal gain or political purposes, or bribery.

https://al.usembassy.gov/treasury-targets-actors-for-destabilizing-behavior-throughout-the-western-balkans/

2022-04-11

US

Executive Order 14033 Blocking Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons Contributing to the Destabilizing Situation in the Western Balkans

OFAC country specific

Western Balkans

Blocking Property, Suspending Entry

On June 8, 2021, pursuant to, inter alia, IEEPA, the President issued E.O. 14033. In E.O. 14033, the President expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13219, as amended in E.O. 13304, finding that the situation in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Albania (the Western Balkans), over the past two decades, including the undermining of post-war agreements and institutions following the breakup of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as widespread corruption within various governments and institutions in the Western Balkans, stymies progress toward effective and democratic governance and full integration into transatlantic institutions, and thereby constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

SDN